August 1, 2016

Hey Mom!                                                                                           August 1, 2016

This week:

Breaking the "board-om", convection and courtesy, Jazz in the Valley!, and OHHHH SNAP! MCKAY'S GOING TO MEXICO!!!!

AHHHAH-HAHA-HAA~! ooohhhh, man. I knew that guy'd do it! I just knew it!

I'm not going to lie hearing that about threw my personal optimism level through the roof, taking the neighbor's chimney out with it. 

Yeah, proud of that guy, proud of him. Shed a tear for him now or something. Please tell him if you get the chance "I knew you'd report to the real end of the chain of command!"

But things roll on with Ellensburg. The Hermanas had a baptism this past week for their investigator Felipe, and that was very special. The meeting was in Spanish, but like the one we took Alva and Bev too, the Spirit was felt. Particularly at the baptism itself. It always gets so quiet whenever a baptism occurs. And after Felipe came out of the water, the Spirit felt like a wave coming over me. I'm sure everyone else felt it, but it was awesome! Funny thing, in the most peaceful of circumstances wherever it be, the Spirit can be felt just about anywhere. During the intermission portion, the Hermanas very last second asked us to sing a Spanish hymn with them in front of the congregation. I got pretty comfortable around verse 4, so much so I sang bass! Spanish is a very cool language to sing in I've come to find in my vocal experimentation.

That was about the highlight of the week. Work was slow and few-far-between. Sandy dropped us out of the blue, rather vehemently too. But given her past I'm not judging her any which way because we know little to nothing about the details of what she endured. Not our place to know. Had to put up with back-to-back mean folks but also had to chance to have a few really good lessons with Jenny! At the end of the 1st one we showed her and her friends that were with her Mormon,org. They really liked the 12 step program, one of them is an AA graduate. We're helping her overcome her concerns one visit at a time, but she still shows really sincere interest. Enough that she doesn't let any nay-sayers tear down her faith! 

But it's a story week, a lot of fun things happened. The first incident occurred Tuesday when Elder Summit fell onto his bed and broke the board underneath. It was basically a glorified plywood board. Since he took 4 years of karate-jiu jitsu, the only logical thing to do was to kick it in half. Then we all got on board, and it was fun practicing our various hits and strikes on pieces of wood getting half-smaller. The next day we took the other half of the board and had Elder Summit dolphin dive into it after we duct-taped it to the door frame. He wanted too. A few days later I hit a "wall of sanity," and asked if Summit could break one of the boards over my head. That one actually hurt just a little. But it was still funny to scream "HIT ME!" like Joker or someone else.

Speaking of apartment inconveniences, we nearly baked last week. The place doesn’t come with build in AC and the unit we have we stick in the bedroom so we can at least sleep at night. Anyway, we were cooking when we finally decided to break down and call Bishop Schilling to see if he had a spare AC unit lying around. Turns out he did! And later that night he installed it. He agreed as well as we that it didn't work terribly well, but after leaving it on for a few days it has at least dropped the temperature a few degrees. Still! Gives me a chance to rock the old Hebrew shepherd's shawl! I'll include a picture.

Ellensburg is hosting its annual Jazz in the Valley! event, and it was fun walking around downtown talking to people who came for it. The free-style jazz made for a nice atmosphere, and we talked to a good amount of people, good and very respectable people. Helped a street-vendor for the Farmer's market take down his tent, and in return he gave us a bag of corn! Hey, I'm not complaining about corn.

Other than that, sounds like things are progressing well in Vegas. Glad to hear there wasn't a gas-explosion catastrophe. I can't remember where Acacia is at. I guess that means I'm becoming more and more of a 12th man (guy from Washington). I remember Paul being practically a Southern guy when he came back. Daniel was a straight up Italian too. Great, probably means I'll be back in some Seahawks tie pronouncing everything "wash" like "wersh"

Still, a lot of time to go, and little time to notice it. I'll include some hike pics this morning. But know that I'll always remember you guys! And the Savior loves us all! And through prophets, we understand just how eternal and deep that simple and pure piece of doctrine goes! 

Love you all!

Michael